Curious Church Customs and Cognate Subjects Part 10

_The Woman's speache._ Raphe, my beloved husband, I am right sorie that I have in thy absence taken another man to be my husband: but here, before G.o.d, and this companie, I renounce and forsake him, and do promise to keep mysellfe only unto thee during life, and to perform all duties which I first promised unto thee in our marriage.

The first day of August, 1604, Raphe Goodchild of the parish of Barkinge, in Thames Street, and Elizabeth his wife, were agreed to live together, and thereupon gave their hands one to another, makinge either of them a solemn vowe so to do in the presence of us:

WILLIAM STEVE, Parson, EDWARD c.o.kER, and RICHARD EIVES, Clerk."

In Germany a sect of the Moravians called _Herrnhuters_ have a most curious method of selecting their life partners: the men and women of a marriageable age are collected in a house which has a suite of three rooms, each opening into the other, the young men in one end room and the young women in the other; then the doors from these two rooms are thrown open into the middle room, which is perfectly darkened. After this follows a sort of general scramble, or "catch who can," and whichever girl the man catches becomes his wife. This method of selecting a wife seems somewhat risky, but it is possible that even in a darkened room a couple with a prior attachment might manage to tumble into each other's arms, and so, while adhering in the letter to the custom of their sect, bring about the union dictated by their hearts.

The throwing of an old shoe after a newly-married couple on their departure is general all over the country, but in Kent the custom is accompanied by a little more detail than is usually observed in other parts of the country. The princ.i.p.al bridesmaid throws the shoe, the other bridesmaids run after it, the belief being that the one who gets it will be the first to be married. She then throws the shoe amongst the gentlemen, and it is supposed that the one who is. .h.i.t will also be married before the others.

The custom of showering rice over the bride and bridegroom is a universal one, although in some parts wheat is subst.i.tuted, this was formerly general in Nottinghams.h.i.+re and Suss.e.x. The practice appears to find a parallel in Poland, when, after the nuptial benediction has been given by the priest, the father receives the newly-married couple at the door of their house, and strews some barley corns over their heads. These corns are carefully gathered up and sown. If they grow it is considered an omen that the married pair will enjoy a life of happiness. Grain of any sort is symbolical of plenty, and no doubt at different periods and in different countries that grain has been selected which could be procured the most easily. An old Spanish ballad of the sixteenth century, _The Cids Wedding_, refers to the custom, except that ears of wheat appear to have been used instead of threshed wheat:--

"All down the street the ears of wheat are round Ximena flying."

Wedding Biddings were usual down to the end of the last century: these were entertainments given previously to the wedding, and the guests were each expected to bring a present. An account of these presents was preserved, and it was expected that the giver should receive a gift of equal value on their own marriage. In c.u.mberland, at these entertainments, a bowl or plate was fixed in some convenient part of the house where each of the company contributed in money in proportion to his ability or inclination. In some districts the bidding was publicly done by a herald with a crook or wand adorned with ribbons, who gave a general invitation according to a prescribed form.

Gretna Green was the invariable resort of runaway couples, owing to the flaw in the Old Scottish law which required nothing more than an acknowledgment before witnesses in order to const.i.tute a valid marriage.

The Marriage Act of 1856 has, however, rendered such unions impossible, for by its provisions, which are common to both countries, it is necessary that one of the parties shall have resided for at least twenty-one days in the parish where the marriage takes place. The old romantic interest once attached to Gretna Green is now fast becoming a thing of the past.

The following extract from the register of St. Martin's Parish, Leicester, is interesting as showing how, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, a marriage was celebrated in a case where a bridegroom was deaf and dumb.

"Decimo quinto Februarii. 18. Eliz.: reginae.

Thomas Filsby and Ursula Russet were married; and because the said Thomas is naturally deaf and dumb, could not for his part observe the order of the form of marriage, after the approbation had of Thomas, the Bishop of Lincoln, John Chippendale, LL.D., and Commissary, and Mr. Richard Davis, of Leicester, and others of his brethren, with the rest of the parish, the said Thomas for expressing of his mind instead of words, of his own accord used these signs: First he embraced her with his arms, took her by the hand, and put a ring on her finger, and laid his hand upon his heart and held up his hands towards heaven; and to show his countenance to dwell with her till his life's end, he did, by closing his eyes with his hands, and digging the earth with his feet, and pulling as though he would ring a bell, with other signs approved."

An interesting feature in the marriage announcements a century ago, was the detail given respecting the fortune of the bride. Matters which now we regard as more or less private were then openly advertised to the world.

_Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser_ for 1759, contains the following notice: "Liverpool, May 25. On Tuesday last was married at Hale, Dr.

Zachariah Leafe, of Prescot, to Miss Martha Clough, of Halewood, an agreeable young lady of 18 years of age, with a very genteel fortune."

_The Leeds Intelligencer_, for July 3, 1764, announces:--"On Thursday last was married Mr. John Wormald, of this town, merchant, to Miss Rebecca Thompson, daughter of the late ---- Thompson, Esqr., of Staincliffe Hall, near Batley, an agreeable young lady with a fortune of upwards of 4,000."

These are no uncommon instances, and almost any newspaper of the period would furnish similar examples.

It was a common custom, down to about 1850, for butchers' boys, in their blue coats, and sometimes also with a large white favour, to attend in the front of houses where weddings had that day taken place, and play on their cleavers with knuckle bones; the "Butchers' Serenade" it was called.

Hogarth, in his delineation of the marriage of the industrious apprentice to his master's daughter, introduces a set of butchers coming forward with marrow bones and cleavers.

A bridegroom was often called upon to pay toll. It was a Somersets.h.i.+re custom for the village children, on the occasion of a wedding, to fasten the churchyard gates with a wreath of evergreens and flowers; a floral bond which always required a "Silver Key" to unlose. A writer to _Notes and Queries_, in January, 1858, states that on the occasion of his marriage, some years previously, when pa.s.sing through the village adjoining that in which the marriage had taken place, his carriage was stopped by the villagers, holding a band of twisted evergreens and flowers, who good naturedly refused to let the carriage pa.s.s until toll had been paid.

At Burnley, in Lancas.h.i.+re, an old custom prevailed by which all persons married at St. Peter's Church, in that town, paid a fine to the boys at the Grammar School; the money thus obtained being applied, according to the records, for the maintenance of the school library. This custom appears to have been kept up down to the year 1870, about which time Burnley Grammar School was rebuilt, and, on its re-opening, the practice of paying fines to the boys was discontinued.

It is a common saying in Lancas.h.i.+re that a bride should wear at her wedding:--

"Something old and something new, Something borrowed, something blue."

This saying, and the practice of it, is common in other parts of England; the writer knows a lady who, when married at Bedford, five years ago, carried out the couplet to the letter; on this same bride being brought by her husband to his home in Lincolns.h.i.+re, at the end of the honeymoon, the custom of lifting the bride over the threshold was observed; the bride and bridegroom got out of the carriage a few yards from the house, and he carried her up the steps, and into the hall. This was formerly a common practice in the North of England, and in Scotland, and is the remains of an old Roman custom which has survived the onslaught of time and change.

It was an old custom to strew the path from the house of the bride to the church with sawdust or sand, and so recently as the year 1876 a "sawdust wedding" took place from a house in Sunderland. The custom would originate, no doubt, in a desire to secure a clean path for the bride to walk upon, and this was often ornamented with devices, which would be easily done with either material.

"Keeping the doorstep warm" was a custom practised most commonly in the North of England. As soon as the bride and bridegroom had gone away, and the old shoe had been thrown, a servant, or sometimes the guests, would pour a kettle of boiling water over the front doorstep, as an auspice that there would soon be another wedding from the same house--keeping the threshold warm for another bride they called it.

In these prosaic nineteenth century days, there is not much attention paid to the selection of the day of the week for the marriage ceremony. Our ancestors had many proverbs and couplets, all more or less pointing to certain and the same day, to avoid or select for the event.

Monday for wealth, Tuesday for health, Wednesday best day of all, Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses, Sat.u.r.day no luck at all.

The practice of inserting wedding announcements in newspapers is almost universal, and the addition of "no cards" appears as often as not. Our neighbours on the other side of the Atlantic have, however, quite outdone us by the following addition to a wedding announcement in the _Quebec Morning Chronicle_, of November 7th, 1868:--"No cards. No Cake. No Wine."

Burial Customs.

BY ENGLAND HOWLETT, F.S.A.

The burial of the dead furnishes many instances of curious customs, some of which, with modifications, survive to our own day, while a large number have become entirely obsolete, or meaningless. In the middle ages especially, it naturally followed that a great deal of superst.i.tion should be attached to death and burial, and superst.i.tion often originated a custom which survived long after any importance was attached to the origin.

The Egyptians made futile attempts to preserve the body by embalming--this practice originated no doubt in the opinion which it was said they held, that so long as a body remained uncorrupted, so long the soul continued in it. The Greeks usually, but not universally, burnt their dead, and interred their ashes in urns. The actual origin of cremation is lost in obscurity, most probably the primary idea was the purification of the body by fire. It is supposed the early practice of the Romans was to bury, but their later practice was to burn, and cremation was held by them in honour, the bodies of suicides and young children not being allowed to be burnt.

In ancient times burial was always without the walls of the cities and towns; indeed before the time of Christianity it was not lawful to bury the dead within the cities, but they used to be carried out into the fields, and there deposited. About the end of the sixth century, St.

Augustine obtained of King Ethelbert a Temple of Idols (used by the King before his conversion), and made a burying place of it; and Saint Cuthbert afterwards obtained (A.D. 752) leave from the Pope to have yards made to the churches, suitable for the burial of the dead.

In the ordinary funerals of Christian Anglo-Saxons, the corpse was simply wrapped in linen, and carried to the grave by two persons, one holding the head, and the other the feet; the priest then censed the body, and whilst it was being deposited in the grave, offered up prayers and benedictions.

At the obsequies of persons of distinction, hymns were sung by the attendant priests, who accompanied the body in procession. At this period the body of a deceased person was always watched by the relatives and friends from the moment of death to the time of burial; the "wake" of the present day being the survival of this custom.

It was a common practice, when the body was embalmed, to take out the heart and bowels, and inter them in a different church to that in which the body was buried; testators sometimes made a request in their wills for this to be done. The custom appears to have prevailed from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. The heart of Richard the First was buried at Rouen, his bowels at Chaluz, and his body at Fontevand. In 1838, the King's heart was discovered under the pavement of the sanctuary in Rouen Cathedral, enclosed in a leaden case, with the inscription:--

Richard Coeur de Lion.

Duc de Normandie. Roi D'Angleterre.

Coeval with the introduction of church bells has been the appropriation of one of them to the service of the dying; originally this bell was tolled when one was yielding up life in order that all who heard it might offer up prayer for the departing spirit, and after death another bell was rung, called the "soul bell." The "Pa.s.sing Bell," as it is now most inappropriately called, is not rung until some hours after death, and corresponds more nearly to the original "soul bell." In some districts it is always rung exactly twenty-four hours after death, the tenor bell being used for an adult, and the treble for a child; the big bell is generally reserved for funerals. In rural districts after the "pa.s.sing bell" has tolled, the s.e.x of the deceased is indicated most generally by tolling twice for a woman and thrice for a man, to this is often added the age by giving one toll for each year.

In the middle ages it was customary at the funeral of any great person to have his horse led, and armour borne, before his corpse, the horse being afterwards claimed as a mortuary due to the church at which the burial took place; the armour was either reserved for the next of kin of the deceased, or else was hung up in the church. No doubt much of the armour suspended over tombs is mere "undertaker's trappings," although often considered genuine and of antiquity.

Over the tombs of bishops, the Episcopal mitre and pastoral staff was sometimes suspended, as in the case of those in Winchester Cathedral hanging over the tomb of Bishop Morley, who died in 1696; and of those in Bromsgrove Church, Worcesters.h.i.+re, suspended over the Monument of Dr.

Hall, Bishop of Bristol, who died in 1710.

The hea.r.s.e, so often mentioned in wills and funeral directions, was not a carriage for the conveyance of the body like that in use at the present day, but was a four square framework of timber, from each corner of which rose a rafter slanting, and all four rafters met at the top; this was covered with black cloth, and at the funerals of persons of distinction was set up for a time in the choir, for the reception of the body during the service; it was surrounded with rails, and fringed and ornamented according to the rank of the deceased. Until the Reformation, hea.r.s.es were garnished with numerous lights as well as with pencils and escocheons, but with the change of faith the lights were discontinued. These hea.r.s.es were introduced about the fourteenth century, and they continued to be used until the civil wars of the seventeenth century.

In Shrops.h.i.+re there is a custom of "ringing the dead home," viz.: chiming all the bells, instead of ringing only one, while the funeral is on its way to the church. When the procession nears the churchyard gate the chiming is stopped and a minute bell is tolled. The s.e.xton's fees at Much Wenlock, as laid down in 1789, include "a chime if required before the funeral, 0 1 0." At Hatherleigh, a small town in Devons.h.i.+re, it was the prevalent custom to ring a lively peal on the church bells after a funeral, as elsewhere after a wedding.

Even in the present day, in some remote rural districts, and especially in Hamps.h.i.+re, the practice still prevails of leaving open the outer door of the house, through which the corpse has been carried, until the mourners return from church, and in some places the custom extends also to the windows; this arises from a superst.i.tion that if the doors or windows be shut there will certainly be another death in the house within a year. In some districts there is a belief that if, when the moment of death approaches, all the doors and windows of the house are opened, the spirit will leave the body more easily.

It was an ancient practice to put an hour gla.s.s into the coffin before burial, as an emblem of the sand of life being run out. Some antiquaries are of opinion that little hour gla.s.ses were anciently given at funerals, like rosemary, and by the friends of the deceased either put into the coffin or thrown into the grave.

The custom which still prevails of sewing up a corpse in flannel, originated, doubtless, in the Act of Parliament, 18 and 19, Charles II., which was pa.s.sed for the encouragement of the woollen trade, and required all bodies to be buried in woollen shrouds; two amending statutes were pa.s.sed, 1678 and 1680, requiring at the funeral an affidavit to be delivered to the priest stating that the requirements of the law had been carried out; otherwise penalties were incurred. These acts were repealed by 54 George III., although long before that time the penalties for noncompliance with the law had ceased to be enforced. During the operation of the acts for burying in woollen, the law was sometimes evaded by covering the corpse with hay, or flowers, notification of which is sometimes met with in the parish registers.

Burial in armour was not at all uncommon in the middle ages, and was considered a most honourable form of burial. Sir Walter Scott, in "The Lay of the last Minstrel," thus refers, to it:

"Seem'd all on fire that Chapel proud, Where Roslin's Chiefs uncoffin'd lie, Each Baron for a sable shroud Sheathed in his iron panoply."

Clement Spelman, of Narburgh, Recorder of Nottingham, who died in 1679, is immured upright, enclosed in a pillar in Narburgh Church, so that the inscription is directly against his face: this must surely be a solitary instance of burial in a pillar, although there are many other instances of burial in an upright position. Thomas Cooke, who was a Governor of the Bank of England, from 1737 to 1739, and who had formerly been a merchant residing in Constantinople, died at Stoke Newington, 12th August, 1752, and by his directions his body was carried to Morden College, Blackheath, of which he was a trustee, it was taken out of the coffin, and buried in a winding sheet upright in the ground, according to the Eastern custom.[8]

Ben Jonson was buried at Westminster in an upright position: possibly this may have been on account of the large fee demanded for a full-sized grave.